Giant George, verified as the world’s tallest dog by Guinness World Records, died last Thursday, one month before his eighth birthday. The official verification changed both his life and the life of his owners overnight. George held the official record for tallest dog from 2010 – 2012.

“It is with a heavy heart that we announce Giant George died on Thursday, October 17, 2013,” his owners, David and Christine Nasser, posted on GiantGeorge.com. “George passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones … We appreciate the love and support you have given Giant George over the last several years.”

(Photo Credit: Zuma/Newscom)

Giant George, 3 feet, 7 inches from paw to his shoulder; almost seven feet long, and weighed approximately 245 pounds. He was known for his appearance on shows like “Live with Regis & Kelly” and “Good Morning America.”

The Great Dane, owned by Dave and Christie Nasser, was actually the runt of the litter, according to the website.

“Eager to play … this big Great Dane was scared of water, scared of dogs a fraction of his size (including Chihuahuas) and most of all, was scared of being alone”, the site said.

The owners donated a percentage of Giant George merchandise to animal charities and in 2011, donated more than $500 to a Japanese animal shelter after the country was hit hard by both an earthquake and tsunami.

Family, friends and fans have all posted to George’s Facebook page with their condolences.

“Thanks to the Nasser family for sharing him with the world. He will be missed,” one fan wrote.

UPDATE (December 21) — Received another update from Prima this morning on Noel’s condition, which is improving (though she still has a long road ahead). More importantly was this note she added about the donations that poured in yesterday:

I would like to thank those of you who donated to help Noel. Thanks to you we can provide Noel with everything she needs, including the expensive medication, special shampoo, food, bedding and any additional vet care she needs. Her recovery will be much faster thanks to all your help.

Thank you all so much for your kindness and generosity; may you be blessed a thousand times over for helping save this poor creature.

_______________________

We adopted our (now) 11-month old Great Dane puppy, Bevo, when he was a just a skin-and-bones 4-month old/40 lb puppy from PAWS of Austin, which is our local Great Dane rescue.

How anybody can abuse and neglect these creatures is beyond my understanding.

The founder of PAWS, Prima Mosi, is one of the kindest and most compassionate people we have ever known. Her dedication to rescuing, healing, and finding homes for these gentle giants is astounding.

PAWS has recently taken in two very, very special needs Harlequin danes. The holidays are a time of giving and being thankful for all we have, to include our canine companions. PAWS could really use your donations now to help with the vet expenses of these two very special, abused, and neglected danes.

The first dog is Noel, who was rescued from a shelter in Garland, TX. As you can see from the pictures, she is in pretty bad shape. She is very young, but it looks like she’s been to hell and back. Her skin is raw and oozing blood. She also has bite wounds on her face and neck. She will need some major vet care to get better.

In the 7+ years I’ve written this blog, I’ve never once held a Bleg or asked for donations to help keep this site going. And I’m not going to do that now, either. But please read the rest of this post (which is difficult), and if you can spare a few dollars to donate to PAWS of Austin, I couldn’t thank you enough.

Here’s Prima’s report on her first 4 days trying to save this puppy:

Day1:

If this doesn’t break your heart, you probably don’t have one.

Noel did well last night. She got up at about midnight went out and finally peed and pooped. Then she went back to bed. In the morning she was a little more awake then she was yesterday. That is because she had a good night sleep on a soft bed in a warm house, probably for the first time in her life.

Early this morning we went out and she peed again. She got her meds and ate breakfast. She is now back in her bed. The bedding has to be changed often because she is oozing blood. So far I used 3 dog beds, 2 comforters and 11 towels. I will be going to Goodwill later this afternoon to buy more comforters. We’ll also need to get more dog beds, because the beds are soaked with blood and they will need to be tossed out. The smell is pretty bad too.

Our vet has called the Central Texas Specialty Hospital to make an appointment with the dermatologist. Because this dog is so raw, it may be difficult to do extensive skin testing, but I’m sure the vets will do whatever she can to make sure we address everything that she has and whatever she needs. We also have to wait on the HW test until the vet can get to her vain.

Noel is so exhausted, she is sleeping most of the day, except for when she is up to eat. She has ok appetite. She loves the bologna sandwiches.

Day 2:

Gave Noel another medicated bath. I tried to get as many scabs off as I could. It was disgusting. The water in the tub was so bloody and I was standing in the middle of it. I don’t get sick to my stomach very often, but that was one of those times. Glad I didn’t have anything to eat that morning. Noel just stood there and let me wash her. She is such a good girl. Getting her out of the tub was a challenge. This is one of those times when I wished I had some help here, but it was just the two of us. Had to be very careful when I wiped her down. I could now see the severity of the wounds on her skin. They were very deep.

I decided to take Noel back to the vet to be checked again because now the vet could see the wounds better. Also, needed to do some tests. Because Noel had hard time walking, we decided to leave her in the van and check her in there. The vet tech and Dr. Mockler came to the car. The vet tech had hard time getting a vain, but Dr. Mockler managed to draw blood. We tested for Lyme, Ehrlicia, Anaplasma and Heartworms. The good news, all are negative. Yay!!

We’re still dealing with lots and lots of Mange mites and a bad Staph infection. She also has an eye infection. In addition, the vet noticed scratches and wounds that may have been cause by possibly a car accident. It kind of looks like she’s been dragged on the road. Dr. Mockler suggested that we leave the wounds open, so they could drain, but she may have to suture them later.

The vet gave us some Previcox to help with the pain and inflammation. The vet receptionist went and got us some more comforters.

Overall Noel is doing well. She is laying on the dog bed, covered with a clean comforter, enjoying her high protein meal and bologna sandwiches.

Day 3:

A few dollars will go a long way to helping Noel make a full recovery.

Noel is definitely doing better today. She is much more awake. I also noticed that her legs are less swollen, although they still look pretty bad. Later in the day I went to check on her and she was not on her bed. Took me a second to see her. She was laying on the couch. Yes, she is a true Dane.

Later in the evening we sat in the TV room and Noel decided to join us. She definitely wants to stay close. She comes close to get petted. Unfortunately we can only pet her on the head because that is the only place that is not bleeding. She really enjoys getting petted.

Day 4:

This morning the picture was not very pretty. She is oozing blood from everywhere, neck, legs, hips and underarms. It is everywhere. Looks like I murdered someone in my living room. The smell is better though. Not as stinky. She will get another bath later today to wash the blood off. Of course, as soon as she stands up, she bleeds again. We are constantly changing the bedding because it is soaked with blood. Good thing we just bought a new washing machine.

She is now back on the couch, sleeping. I’m waiting for the sun to come out, so we can go out to enjoy the warm sun outside. It is good for her. Then, it’s bath time.

I am so glad we rescued this girl. Can’t wait until she looks better. She will be gorgeous and I love her personality. I just feel so bad for her because she looks so miserable right now. But not to worry, I can already see a difference.

The other dane is Dolly, who was found on the streets near a Dollar General store in Brownsville, TX. She was extremely emaciated, only 63 lbs when found and has numerous health issues, including heart worms.

_______________

When I read this email from Prima this morning at my desk, my heart was broken. Thinking about our Great Danes and their amazing capacity for love and loyalty, and how sensitive they can be…makes trying to comprehend how horrible this dog’s life has been too much to bear. We’ve already sent a large donation to PAWS and are taking over two extra (and extra large) dog beds that we are no longer using this evening.

Please consider making a year-end tax-deductible donation to PAWS of Austin if you can.

Though it didn’t really register, George’s paws were comically large even then. But all we saw was this cute puppy.

We certainly never dreamed he would one day become the biggest dog in the world, standing nearly 4ft high at the shoulder, 7ft long and weighing nearly 18 stone. Right now, he just looked bewildered.

He came into our lives in January 2006, just a few months after we had married and set up home in Arizona. We both had busy jobs, Christie selling medical equipment while I was a property developer, but she had always planned that, once she had a house of her own, she would also have a dog.

A doggone miracle: George the Great Dane with the Nasser’s daughter Annabel at home in Arizona

Puppy love: A young George with Dave’s wife Christie. Even as a pup he had comically large paws

She wanted a Great Dane as they make great family pets, so we tracked down a litter of 13, born 1,000 miles away in Oregon. Their owner emailed us a photo showing a chaotic jumble of paws, snouts and tails.

Twelve were entangled with one another, but our eyes were drawn to one pup standing apart from the rest. He was clearly the runt, endearing him to Christie immediately.

George made the long journey from Oregon to Phoenix by plane and we picked him up from the freight area, tired but unshaken.

As soon as George settled into our home, we discovered our plans to be fair but firm parents were wishful thinking.

All the things that make Great Danes wonderful pets — their lack of aggression and their attachment to humans — make them more emotionally sensitive than other dogs.

They need to be with their ‘pack’ at all times and at night the cute pup with intensely blue eyes turned into a caterwauling banshee whenever we tried to leave him alone in the kitchen.

Magnificent: George measures more than 7ft from nose to tail and weighs 18st

No matter how much we reminded ourselves that he had every home comfort (warm dog bed, warm blanket, warm kitchen, squeaky bone), each whimper created a picture in our heads of a tragic, abandoned pup, desperate for his mother.

Eventually, we gave in and shunted George’s dog bed into our bedroom. In the coming months, Christie really threw herself into being a mum to George. As well as a photo album, he had a growth chart — we were soon reading it in awe.

At five months he still acted like a puppy, chasing his tail and playing games of fetch and tug-of-war with his favorite bit of rope. But he was already the size of a fully-grown Labrador.

He was putting on more than a pound a day and he bounded around like Bambi, skittering on our wooden floors and hurling himself at everything he fancied, including us humans. His displays of affection could leave you pinned temporarily against a wall or a piece of furniture.

More…

His size did not go unnoticed in the outside world. Our local park had a section for puppies but we were bullied out of it by other owners, who were scared George would hurt their pups, — but the opposite was true.

The smaller dogs ran around and under him, and he’d be constantly sidestepping them, obviously anxious and jittery. Slowly we realized that our enormous puppy was a big softie. Besides his terror of being left alone, he had a fear of water.

He’d growl anxiously at the side of our swimming pool, alarmed that his ‘pack’ members would so willingly place themselves in danger of drowning.

If the pool was his most-hated place, his favorite was our bedroom. Eventually he outgrew the single mattress we placed there for him and preferred instead the comfort of our king-sized bed — sprawling between us like some over-indulged prince while we spent half the night clinging onto the edges.

Paws for thought: George’s giant feet dwarf Dave’s hand

In the summer of 2006, we solved this problem by buying him his own queen-sized mattress, which he still sleeps on today at the bottom of our bed.

But soon we encountered another challenge as George reached doggie puberty. Once he had grabbed life by the lapels, now he was grabbing onto legs — table legs, chair legs, human legs, he wasn’t picky — and doing what all male dogs do with the vigour of a canine giant.

He calmed down in the furniture department after we had him neutered, but then he took up a new hobby, eating as if it were an Olympic sport.

A sausage on the barbecue was like a siren to a passing sailor. You couldn’t turn your back for a minute. And he was so tall that he actually had to bend down to pinch food off kitchen counters.

He could reach the high shelves as well, so we had to hide everything away in cupboards. Soon, he was getting through around 100lb of dry dog food every month.

As he approached his first birthday in November 2006, weighing about 14 stone, it was getting physically impossible to make him go anywhere he didn’t want to — including the vet’s surgery. He had not forgotten the time he went there in possession of his manhood — and came out less than whole.

As soon as he recognised the entrance, he refused to move. So I had to take him around to the less familiar back door instead.

For all these troubles, George gave us plenty in return, not least the following year when Christie lost the baby she was carrying.

Evidently tuned in to her grief, George was a constant presence at her side. When she sat, he sat too. When she stood, he stood and padded alongside her to wherever she was going.

His personality grew more delightful the bigger he got. A male Great Dane typically weighs from nine to 11 stone, but by Christmas 2007 George weighed 15 stone — bigger than most men. At this point, he loved being chauffeured around in my golf cart and would sit in it, his haunches on the seat and front legs on the floor.

By Christmas 2008, our canine colossus weighed 18 stone. A friend suggested he might be a contender for the Guinness Book Of Records, but we had other things to think about: Christie had discovered that she was pregnant again.

With size comes problems: George the giant barely fits in the back of his owner’s SUV

The trouble was, when our daughter Annabel arrived that September George made it clear he wanted nothing to do with this interloper. He was used to spending nights in delightful oblivion at the foot of our bed. Annabel’s high-decibel presence simply wasn’t on.

When she cried, he’d wake, harrumph and then turn over in annoyance. Once it was clear the racket was going to continue, he’d exhale heavily again, till one of us finished that mysterious feeding thing we did with the noisy intruder.

But while he might not have cared much for Annabel, George loved her dolls, especially a stuffed green one that played a nursery rhyme when squeezed. Whenever he could, he placed it between his paws and pressed it so he could hear the tune.

It was like a security blanket. It was a period of such big adjustment for him that if it made him happy, then it was fine by us and our patience was rewarded.

Slowly, George understood that Annabel was our pack’s youngest member and in need of his affection and protection. And on Christmas morning, he ended his three-month sulk, acknowledging her presence with a lick of her hand. It was the best present we could have had — although the beginning of 2010 brought more good news.

Over the previous weeks, while Annabel slept, Christie had applied to the Guinness World Records people on George’s behalf. That February, one of their adjudicators came to watch George being measured in the presence of a vet. He was officially declared not just the world’s tallest living dog (43 inches from paw to shoulder) but the tallest dog ever.

The following week we flew to Chicago to appear on the Oprah Winfrey Show and were put up in one of the city’s most luxurious hotels. We had a huge sitting room, dining area and even a bar — but there was just one problem. There was nowhere for George to sleep.

As we enjoyed a gourmet meal and a bottle of red wine that night, he struggled to settle on two roll-out divans provided for him. Infuriatingly, they wouldn’t stay together. So he had his head on one and back end on the other, but his stomach was sagging onto the carpet.

‘You know what we need to do,’ I joked. ‘Give George our bed to sleep on and have the divans in this room ourselves.’

Christie looked at me with a telltale gleam in her eye and I knew immediately my joke had been a fatal error. An hour later, our boy was sprawled in splendor in our huge, fluffy king-size bed.

‘Well,’ whispered Christie, ‘George is the star here, after all.’ She was right, of course, and since his appearance on TV, Giant George has built a following around the world, with his own fan club, website and 70,000 fans on Facebook.

None of this, of course, means anything to George. He still spends his days doing what he has always liked best: eating, playing and sleeping.

Our cherished pet may have become a global celebrity — but really, he’s just one of the family.

The pit-bull mix will be handed back over to his owners today. The terms of the agreement require Winston to go to obedience training classes. Winston must behave for six months. At that time the case will dropped. All fines were waived.

The City has not said if a civil suit will be filed to pay for the damages to the car.

Count on Eyewitness News to be there today when Winston is reunited with his owner.

Save a Life…Adopt Just One More…Pet!

Everyday we read or hear another story about pets and other animals being abandoned in record numbers while at the same time we regularly hear about crazy new rules and laws being passed limiting the amount of pets that people may have, even down to one or two… or worse yet, none.

Nobody is promoting hoarding pets or animals, but at a time when there are more pets and animals of all types being abandoned or being taken to shelters already bursting at the seams, there is nothing crazier than legislating away the ability of willing adoptive families to take in just one more pet!!

Our goal is to raise awareness and help find homes for all pets and animals that need one by helping to match them with loving families and positive situations. Our goal is also to help fight the trend of unfavorable legislation and rules in an attempt to stop unnecessary Euthenization!!

“All over the world, major universities are researching the therapeutic value of pets in our society and the number of hospitals, nursing homes, prisons and mental institutions which are employing full-time pet therapists and animals is increasing daily.” ~ Betty White, American Actress, Animal Activist, and Author of Pet Love

There is always room for Just One More Pet. So if you have room in your home and room in your heart… Adopt Just One More! If you live in an area that promotes unreasonable limitations on pets… fight the good fight and help change the rules and legislation…

Save the Life of Just One More…Animal!

Recent and Seasonal Shots

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Photos by the UCLA Shutterbug are protected by copyright, Please email at JustOneMorePet@gmail.com or find us on twitter @JustOneMorePet for permission to duplicate for commerical purposes or to purchase photos.

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Great Book for Children and Pet Lovers… And a Perfect Holiday Gift

One More Pet
Emily loves animals so much that she can’t resist bringing them home. When a local farmer feels under the weather, she is only too eager to “feed the lambs, milk the cows and brush the rams.” The farmer is so grateful for Emily’s help that he gives her a giant egg... Can you guess what happens after that? The rhythmic verse begs to be read aloud, and the lively pictures will delight children as they watch Emily’s collection of pets get bigger and bigger.

If You Were Stranded On An Island…

A recent national survey revealed just how much Americans love their companion animals. When respondents were asked whether they’d like to spend life stranded on a deserted island with either their spouse or their pet, over 60% said they would prefer their dog or cat for companionship!